Thursday, February 4, 2010

SEC Climate Change Guidance

From a January 27, 2010, Securities and Exchange Commission press release..

See brief excerpt:

The Securities and Exchange Commission today voted to provide public companies with interpretive guidance on existing SEC disclosure requirements as they apply to business or legal developments relating to the issue of climate change.

"We are not opining on whether the world's climate is changing, at what pace it might be changing, or due to what causes. Nothing that the Commission does today should be construed as weighing in on those topics," said SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro. "Today's guidance will help to ensure that our disclosure rules are consistently applied."

Specifically, the SEC's interpretative guidance highlights the following areas as examples of where climate change may trigger disclosure requirements:

Impact of Legislation and Regulation
Impact of International Accords
Indirect Consequences of Regulation or Business Trends
Physical Impacts of Climate Change

For full details see the SEC press release; http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-15.htm

To view the SEC Chair speech for this link; http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/2010/spch012710mls-climate.htm

Green Supply Chain Implementation Challenges